hey advanced from the neighbourhood of
Lake Titicaca a golden wedge, and were directed to take up their abode
at the spot where this sacred emblem should sink easily into the ground.
This happened in the Valley of Cuzco; the wedge of gold sank into the
earth and disappeared for ever, and Manco Capac settled down to teach
the men of the land the arts of agriculture, while Mama Ocllo showed the
women how to weave and spin. Under these wise and benevolent rulers the
community grew and spread, absorbing into itself the neighbouring
tribes, and overrunning the whole tableland. The city of Cuzco was
founded, and, under the successors of the Children of the Sun, became
the capital of a great and flourishing monarchy. In the middle of the
fifteenth century the famous Topa Inca Yupanqui led his armies across
the terrible desert of Atacama, and, penetrating to the southern region
of Chili, made the river Maule the boundary of his dominions, while his
son, Huayna Capac, who succeeded him, pushed his conquests northward,
and added the powerful kingdom of Quito to the empire of Peru. The city
of Cuzco was the royal residence of the Incas, and also the 'Holy City,'
for there stood the great Temple of the Sun, the most magnificent
structure in the New World, to which came pilgrims from every corner of
the empire.

[Illustration: MANCO CAPAC AND MAMA OCLLO HUACO, THE CHILDREN OF THE
SUN, COME FROM LAKE TITICACA TO GOVERN AND CIVILISE THE TRIBES OF PERU]

Cuzco was defended on the north by a high hill, a spur of the
Cordilleras, upon which was built a wonderful fortress of stone, with
walls, towers, and subterranean galleries, the remains of which exist to
this day and amaze the traveller by their size and solidity, some of the
stones being thirty-eight feet long by eighteen broad, and six feet
thick, and so exactly fitted together that, though no cement was used,
it would be impossible to put the blade of a knife between them. As the
Peruvians had neither machinery, beasts of burden, nor iron tools, and
as the quarry from which these huge blocks were hewn lay forty-five
miles from Cuzco, over river and ravine, it is easy to imagine the
frightful labour which this building must have cost; indeed, it is said
to have employed twenty thousand men for fifty years, and was, after
all, but one of the many fortifications established by the Incas
throughout their dominions. Their government was absolutely despotic,
the sovereign being held so